


Quarter

by ladyofrosefire



Series: The Fjord Trash Fjic Quarantine Zone [5]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Brief Vomiting, Figging, Flogging, Forced to Watch, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Non-Consensual Bondage, Non-Consensual Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:29:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23763865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyofrosefire/pseuds/ladyofrosefire
Summary: Set during the Darktow Arc, Avantika orders Fjord flogged.Kinkmeme prompt and additional clarifications/warnings in author's note.Thank you to Pippin2112 for beta-reading!
Relationships: Captain Avantika & Fjord (Critical Role), Fjord & Caleb Widogast
Series: The Fjord Trash Fjic Quarantine Zone [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1159337
Comments: 10
Kudos: 49





	Quarter

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "For whatever reason, one or more of the M9 gets figged with a large butt (or vagina, but not urethra please!) plug made from potent, pealed ginger and feels the burn.  
> Can be as a punishment or something they requested specifically.  
> Could be administered by another M9 member, an NPC, whoever. Can be stand alone or with other corporal punishment and/or other chemical irritant play."
> 
> This fic contains no genital contact of any kind, but Fjord does not consent to anything that happens, including the figging.

Shortly before sundown, two of the sailors lead Fjord up from below decks. He stands as straight as he can between them and does his best to shut out the jeering of the assembled crew. Coarse rope wraps tightly around his wrists. The rest of the Nein stand by the rail behind a line of Avantika’s crew, Vera included, with Bouldergut at her side, cudgel in hand. Avantika herself waits on a throne built of crates, one leg kicked up lazily, and a heavy leather flogger resting against her boot.

The two crewmembers holding Fjord’s arms shove him forward and down, and he thuds to his knees at her feet, wincing as the hard boards crack against his kneecaps.

She tips his chin up with a finger beneath it. “I like you, Fjord. I do. But you’re setting a bad example for my crew. I’ll give you a choice— you can let one of your little friends take your place if you prefer.”

Although her face is close, she speaks loudly, her voice carrying to her crew, and to the Nein. He refuses to look and see if any of them try to move forward.

Fjord grits his teeth. “No.” She arches a brow, and he forges ahead. “No, this is between you and me.”

“Mm. Perhaps.” Avantika sits back, smiling. “One of your friends will hold the lash, or I will. Either way, you will beg for mercy before it stops.”

Jester makes a sound then, and Fjord cannot keep from wincing. He won’t look, won’t risk seeing the expression on her face, because then he will break and beg right then. And maybe he should, but they need him. They need him to keep _some_ respect, and if he’s weak, they won’t have anything. This is for _them_. So he stares at Avantika’s boots and tries not to jump or sag as Caleb’s voice cuts through the air.

“Allow me.”

It’s cold, dispassionate, a tone he has used before. The tone that means he intends to do what needs to be done. Hearing it is almost a relief.

Avantika beckons, flipping the flogger around in her grip to present it handle-first. But when Caleb takes it, she tightens her grip and uses it to pull him forward. “Do not think you can make this easy for him.”

Caleb lets out a sharp huff. “Well? What do you want?”

Then she does release the flogger, reclining into her makeshift throne with a pleased smile. “ _Vas-là_.” She flicks her fingers at a large crate near a grate in the deck. “You are a clever man. I’m sure you can figure it out.”

Fjord jolts to his feet and does not protest when Caleb takes hold of the rope dangling from his wrists. He moves stiff and unsteady to the crate. But when Caleb presses a hand against his back, he cannot bring himself to move. He stands rigid, jaw clenched, breath coming hard. Still, he refuses to look around, to acknowledge the fresh jeers or risk seeing his friends’ faces.

“Fjord,” Caleb presses a little harder, not roughly, but firmly. “You need to bend. I am sorry.”

It’s that, the little crack in that cold facade, that makes him do it. He forces himself to lay his chest against the crate, to stretch out his arms in front of him so that Caleb can secure the end of the rope to the grate in the deck. The position leaves no question of what Avantika wants to see done to him, and he hides his burning face against the worn wooden planks of the crate, grateful for that small mercy.

It doesn’t last.

“You forgot something,” she calls.

Caleb makes a disgusted sound, almost inaudible, and Fjord has to bite his tongue to keep from crying mercy. He reminds himself that he lives in close quarters with these people, that he should have given up on modesty years ago, but he trembles as Caleb unbuckles his belt and tugs his pants and smalls down around his knees, baring his ass to the crew and their mockery.

“All of it,” Avantika orders.

Over at the railing, Beau starts to shout something. There’s a clamor, a shift in the crew, and Fjord imagines Caduceus putting an arm around her, or Jester grabbing her hand in a white-knuckled grip. Or Caleb shaking his head at them and telling them to stay still and not get all of them murdered over something so _small._

His stomach clenches and rolls.

Caleb leans down. “Keep your head down and raise your chest. I will handle it.”

Fjord does, curving his spine and hiding his burning face between his outstretched arms. Caleb tugs his shirt up over his shoulders and leaves it bunched around his bound wrists. The sea air is chilly and damp on his back, and he fights to suppress a shudder. But it means he does not have to look at anyone, and that they only see his back. He cannot make himself cooperate as Caleb bends and takes Fjord’s pants away, but he does not fight it, either. All his focus goes toward stillness and silence.

Someone approaches, and Fjord lifts his head just enough to see one of the crew hold out a wooden bowl with something white and slippery inside, carved into the shape of a thick cone with a flared knob on the end. The sharp, spicy smell hits him a moment later, one Fjord remembers from the occasional mealtime and from tea meant to settle the stomachs of new crewmembers.

There’s a long beat before Caleb takes the ginger from the bowl and turns back to him. “You, ah, have to—open.”

Fjord stares at him for a moment before it sinks in. He shakes his head once, eyes wide, panting. He can’t. He won’t, and he can’t, and he should have known something like this was coming, that a beating was too easy.

Caleb leans over him and, carefully, presses his head back down. “I am sorry,” he says again, “Try—try to hold still. To not tense. It will make it worse. I will do what I can—”

It still takes Caleb pushing his knees apart with a booted foot for Fjord to spread his legs. He can’t even grip the edge of the crate—it’s behind his hands, and there’s no slack on the rope to pull them back. Instead, he clenches them into fists, trying to force all the tension in his body into them. It does not entirely work, of course. The ginger is cold against his ass, slippery, and it pushes in slowly while Fjord bites back whimpers.

He closes his thighs again so he won’t get hit in the balls and keeps his head down. The ginger is just cold, just an odd, unwelcome presence in his ass. And then it starts up, a tingle, then a warmth, and then a burn that spreads through his ass as he jerks against his ropes.

Caleb picks up the flogger from the deck. “How many?”

“Until I am satisfied—when he begs.”

There’s a hungry edge to Avantika’s tone that she does not even _try_ to hide. Fjord has enough time to remember a voice echoing ‘ _consume’_ before the flogger licks across his skin. He tenses against it, of course. Immediately, the burn sharpens, startling a cry from him. The next blow falls a moment later, the falls spreading more stinging heat across his ass. He forces himself to relax only for Caleb to bring the flogger down again. That pain bites deeper when he doesn’t clench, and he groans into his arm as quietly as he can.

“Harder,” Avantika calls. “Unless you wish to join him?”

Caleb hesitates again.

“Do it,” Fjord grits out. “Caleb, there’s no point getting both of us in this.”

Fjord can hear the breath he draws, slow and ragged. Then the leather cuts through the air again. He bites his cheek as it cracks down on his ass. The knots in the leather sting, and his ass burns from the ginger. It’s _hot_ and _hurts_. It hurts in a way that is intimate and impossible to cringe away from because every effort to tighten up and curl in on himself only makes it worse.

He’s felt worse. The Iron Shepherds were worse than this. This will end, eventually. She’ll get tired of it, and the ginger will stop stinging. He’ll take the thing out himself and pitch it into the sea. And then he’ll do his best to forget all of this.

Fjord takes two more lashes before he screams.

It’s only been a minute. The whole damn crew watches, waiting for him to fall apart. He swears he can feel Avantika’s gaze on him, hot and caustic on the backs of his shoulders. His friends are watching, too, and he’s taken worse for them. They _cannot_ know how this feels. But he can’t stop himself crying out, even if he muffles it as much as he can in his arm, cheek pressed to the rough wood of the crate. Caleb spreads out the beating, lashing the backs of his legs. Fjord knows it’s to keep the skin from breaking, but he still _howls_ as the flogger catches him right at the crease of his thigh and ass. He clenches hard around the ginger, whimpering as the burning spikes again.

“Caleb—” he chokes out and breaks off with a whimper as the flogger comes down again. Tears roll down his face into his mouth. “Caleb—take it out. Take it _out—_ ”

Caleb does not reply. He can’t, and he doesn’t need to. For the same reason that Fjord has to take this, Caleb cannot stop. Even if they won this fight, there is nowhere for them to run to. And they _can’t_ win, not with Fjord naked on his knees and their friends watched.

“Please,” he gasps anyway, “Fuck, take it out, _please_ —”

Caleb cannot even pause the flogging, although he falters for a moment. But Fjord cannot stop himself, either. He stares hard at the rope around his wrists, tracking the grain of it, the rough, splintering weave that rubs his skin raw. Then the lash comes down again. He almost screams at Caleb to wait, but then, that won’t help either of them. So he bites the inside of his mouth until he tastes copper. With every lash, he clenches down on the ginger. His ass feels like it’s on _fire,_ and there’s a horrible, sick twist in his stomach.

If he begs, he wonders, will Avantika even listen? The flogger comes down at the tops of his thighs again, and he bites back a scream. He thinks he feels blood on the back of one leg.

“ _Fjord_!” Jester sobs.

And for a moment, he’s back in that basement, bound and blindfolded.

“Mercy!” Fjord chokes out, “Captain, mercy, please.”

Immediately, Caleb stops.

“Look at me,” Avantika commands and waits until Fjord raises his head from the wood. She smiles as she takes in the tear tracks on his face. “Ah, that’s better.”

He hates her. Before, it was fear and revulsion and intrigue. Now he hates her in the way he had hated the older children at the orphanage, the weight of it a small, hard thing stuck in his throat and a clawed hand dragging at his guts.

Avantika considers him a moment before calling, “Hold his head up.”

It’s not over, then. Fjord tries to keep his face as neutral as he can as Caleb gets a grip on the longest part of his hair.

“Now, hit him again.”

A little ways away, Jester is sobbing quietly, and the only thing keeping Fjord from glaring is the memory of a dark basement and someone else who wanted to hurt him. The flogger comes down again on his ass, but the angle is shit, or Caleb is trying to spare him and the pain isn’t too bad.

“Do you need assistance?” she asks, all hunger, and Fjord almost begs again.

The next blow lands properly, tails striking horizontally at the spot where his thighs and ass meet, and Fjord bites back a shout, tugging at the ropes.

“Très bien!” Avantika smiles, razor-sharp, “Four more like that.”

It ends up taking Caleb _six_ more strikes to land four the way Avantika wants, blows hard enough to make Fjord’s eyes go wide and his whole body jerk before he screams. He cannot stop the tears, either. Maybe it’s better than if she saw that clawed thing in him.

She makes Caleb hold his head up while he takes the ginger back out, and Fjord lets out a thin, whining cry. Then he gets to hide his head against his arm and pant and try not to shake. The air fills with the smell of burning a moment later as Caleb’s hand ignites and destroys that fucking awful root. Fjord’s shoulders slump. Caleb still moves around him, helping him back into his pants, first, although Fjord hisses as they drag against his battered skin, and then pulling his shirt back down. He undoes the ropes last. It takes Caleb’s hand on his arm and everything that Fjord has to haul himself upright, back straight, shoulders square.

“Captain.”

“Fjord…” Avantika finally rises from her makeshift throne. “You and I will not have more problems, _non_?”

“No, Captain.”

“Bon. Go to your friends.” She smiles and looks toward where Jester stands, shaking, with Caduceus’ arms around her. “See? I am not unreasonable. Let’s not have a repeat of this. Dismissed.”

The crew disperses. Caleb leads him over to the rest of the Nein.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Beau spits. “ _Fuck._ Say the word, just—”

“We can’t.”

Beau stares at him, and he can’t look because he thinks he sees tears in her eyes, and she would hate that if she knew. His throat feels like there’s something sharp in it. Roughly, he swipes the back of his hand across his cheeks and then scrubs the heels of his hands into his eyes.

He drops them in time to catch Caduceus reaching out to him and steps back, shaking his head. “I’m fine.”

Caduceus frowns. It isn’t even a _good_ lie—they all saw whatever mess of welts he’s currently sporting. Caduceus starts to open his mouth, presumably to give some sage bit of advice about help and healing.

It is at that moment that Caleb sticks his head over the ship’s rail and vomits into the water. He shudders hard with it, fumbling one-handed to get his hair back out of his face, and then lets out a low groan. A moment later, a second wave of retching hits him.

In the distraction, Fjord slips away.

The others crowd around Caleb, and Fjord does not look back to see if any of them notice or bother to follow. He tells himself he does not want them to. It is enough that he makes it back to his bunk without being seen, without having to hear someone else jeering. Once inside, he locks the door, bites down on his knuckles, and lets out a long whine. His ass still hurts inside and out.

Fjord limps to his bunk, retrieves his small shaving mirror, and carefully drops his pants. He doesn’t _want_ to look, but he has to, so he holds the mirror behind himself and angles it until he can see. It only shows him a little—a vivid crisscross of welts and, yes, a light trickle of blood in one spot. He tosses the mirror back into his bag and fishes out a healing potion. It’s wasteful when both Clerics have spells they’d be willing to use, but Fjord yanks the cork and swallows it anyway, the bitter, herbal taste familiar and impersonal. It takes away the worst of the pain from the flogging, at least. The rest, he’ll sleep off.

His stomach a lead weight, Fjord stretches out on his stomach on the cot and hopes that Avantika won’t call him to her cabin tonight.

**Author's Note:**

> The working title was "pirates are bad, actually."
> 
> The author thrives on comments! 🖤🖤🖤 
> 
> Come and join us on the writing discord, [Haven!](https://discord.gg/WPywUy7)


End file.
